“Let me guess,” I said when Jean-Baptiste reached us, “You’ve decided not to work with me.”
The corners of his lips twitched up but then fell back down. “I hate to criticize the fine men and women of the DSA, but they made you play their little undercover game for nothing. I’m not the one importing psyc.”
Oh, hell no.
“Save it for the jury,” Freezefire growled.
“Pardon me, Freezefire,” Jean-Baptiste said. “I believe I was speaking to the lady.”
“If it’s not you, then who is it?” I asked before Freezefire could get in a comeback. Was Jean-Baptiste telling the truth? I couldn’t risk another telepathic conversation. With Agent Lagarde this close, it wouldn’t be private.
“I don’t know who’s at the top,” Jean-Baptiste said. “The ones on the bottom are idiots like the Combuster. I have nothing to do with them. They’re not giving me my cut, and they’re not following my rules.”
“Your rules,” Freezefire scoffed.
“My rules,” Jean-Baptiste repeated, still facing me. “They’re selling to kids. They’re taking shots at my men in public. That moron the Combuster started blowing up a crowded restaurant. It’s called organized crime for a reason. I keep things nice and neat.”
“Well, that’s all right then,” said Freezefire, his voice not dripping with sarcasm but drowning in it. “Here I thought killing people was wrong, but as long as you’re doing it neatly…”
Jean-Baptiste finally turned in his direction. “You should be grateful. Or did you think you’re the reason Miami’s violent crime rate is at an all-time low? All you do is clean up when the toilet overflows. I’ve reworked the entire damn plumbing.”
“Boys,” I chided. “Play nice for another minute, at least. Jean-Baptiste, you said you had answers. If you don’t know who’s running the psyc operation, do you at least know where it’s coming from?”
“I’ve heard rumors about who’s making it.”
“And?” I asked when he didn’t elaborate.
His fingers twisted at the cufflinks of his suit jacket. “I’d prefer to give you more than just a rumor. Especially about this.”
“Just give me something I can give the DSA. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours yet, and I’m already sick of this whole cooperating with the authorities thing.”
“Understandable,” he said. Then, “I heard it’s Dr. Sweet.”
Sweet. Of course it was Sweet. I waited for some kind of emotional reaction but only felt numb. Numbness was good. Numbness meant I wouldn’t have to struggle to hide my emotions from Agent Lagarde. “That’s interesting,” I said tonelessly. “Thank you.”
“Not at all.”
And Val, he added in his thoughts. If you ever move against me again, you’ll find Miami a very unpleasant place to live—for the short amount of time you’ll have left alive.
“No threats, please, Mr. Dupree.” Agent Lagarde tightened her grip on his arm. “Let’s get you into the car.”
I didn’t mind the threat. Honestly, if Jean-Baptiste didn’t give me some kind of warning, I’d worry he was going soft. The DSA was going to pay for screwing me over. If Jean-Baptiste was telling the truth that he wasn’t running the psyc ring (which was admittedly a big ‘if’), then I’d sabotaged my friendship with him for nothing. It was going to take something a lot nicer than a wine basket to get back on his good side this time.
Priorities, though. Before anything else, I needed to make sure the DSA’s deal was still on the table. They’d agreed to let off Dave if I brought in enough evidence to take down Jean-Baptiste. If Jean-Baptiste truly wasn’t responsible, then where did that leave me?
Agent Lagarde walked back toward me after locking Jean-Baptiste securely in the back of a squad car. She must have sat out the action with the Combuster’s punks, because there wasn’t a scratch on her. Her blouse wasn’t even rumpled, and there wasn’t a trace of sweat on her face despite the heat.
“I get credit for that, right?” I asked.
“I beg your pardon?” she asked.
“You heard the Prophet King. If he’s not behind the psyc, then whoever Spontaneous Combustion Kid’s working for—”
“We’re going to need evidence to confirm if he’s telling the truth.”
“Well, let’s just assume for a minute that he is. Once you figure out a way to interrogate that kid without him blowing you up, he can lead you to whoever’s really behind this, and since I’m the reason he’s in custody, I get the credit and you leave Dave be.”
The flashing police lights reflected off Agent Lagarde’s glasses, making any attempts at eye contact like trying to have a staring contest with a strobe light. “To drop charges against White Knight, we need someone of equal or greater value,” she said. “The Prophet King would’ve counted, but the Combuster’s too low-level. You’d need to bring in evidence against the person at the top, which I don’t think you’re in a position to do anymore.”
“You’re underestimating me, Agent Lagarde. That usually doesn’t work out well for people.” I pushed my hair back from my face. “The Prophet King gave me a lead. I might be able to follow it to the person at the top, but I need you to do something for me.”
“And that is?”
“Arrange a visit with Dr. Sweet.”
“Of course.” Her face tilted skyward for a second. “Arrange for a supervillain with mind-control abilities to waltz into the most highly guarded prison in the country. My superiors will love that suggestion.”
“Well, if it’s too hard for you…”
“Difficulty doesn’t matter—as long as it gets results. Do you really think you can get anything out of Dr. Sweet? He hasn’t said a single word since his arrest.”
“Well, I haven’t spoken to him yet.”
She considered me in silence. I couldn’t believe I was fighting for the privilege of having the DSA continue to manipulate me, but the only other option involved a messy trial and a big chance Dave would end up a few cells down from Dr. Sweet. And if the doctor really had developed psyc… If I had my way, every trace of Dr. Sweet—every one of his inventions, everything he’d ever owned—would be wiped off the face of the earth. I wanted the drug destroyed just to spite him, and the DSA had the resources to help me do that.
“Fine. I’ll make some calls,” Agent Lagarde said, to my relief. “You’ll need to talk to your lawyer. The agreement he made was very specific about the circumstances under which you’d cooperate with us. If the Prophet King really isn’t the person at the top, our deal is technically terminated.”
“I’ll have him revise it. And come to think of it, I’m pretty sure there was a clause somewhere in there about how you’re obligated to provide me adequate security.” I twisted so she could see the bandage on my back. “I’m not sure you held up your end of the bargain tonight.”
“We provided a SWAT team and a superhero. Take it up with your lawyer if you’re concerned. In the meantime, be ready to fly out early tomorrow morning. I’ll email you our itinerary once I get approval.”
Now my work here was done. I trudged back to my car, taking my souvenirs from the explosions with me. The cut on my lower back ached dully, and the skin of the back of my legs stung as if I’d gotten a sunburn. All that, and I’d barely made any progress. At this time yesterday, I thought I’d known who was behind the psyc operation. I’d been wrong, and it felt as if I’d taken a step backward. Fortunately, I knew how to rectify that.
Two blocks away from the restaurant and stopped at a red light, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed a number.
“I have a job for you,” I said. “Double your standard rates.”
• • •
By the time I got home, my initial numbness over hearing Dr. Sweet’s name had given way to a cocktail of disbelief, anger, and dread. It couldn’t be him, was my knee-jerk reaction. He’s in prison. But if dying hadn’t stopped him, what was locking him up going to do? Yes, I said dying. Back when Dave and I still r
an around in costume, we’d killed him twice, only for him to show up years later with no explanation and no sign of injury. He must have some kind of special ability, but if it was regeneration, it was the most effective form I’d ever seen. His last death had involved him getting set on fire and buried under a collapsing building. That was after he’d kidnapped Elisa, so it was no less than he deserved. (And yes, if you’re keeping count, that’s twice I’ve let my daughter get kidnapped. I was an irresponsible failure of a mother and deserved a lot worse than some shrapnel in my back.)
Then two months ago, Dr. Sweet turned up alive again and abducted me as part of an elaborate plot. I’d been in DSA custody at the time, drugged and restrained after I’d been framed for murder, but that was no excuse for letting myself get taken. Dave had fought his way past Dr. Sweet’s monsters and his own former DSA colleagues to save me, and now he was facing prison time for it. That was my fault, but I could spare a little blame for Dr. Sweet. And now, my only hope of keeping Dave out of jail lay in getting information out of the doctor. That was irony, right? I hated irony.
Most of the lights were off in the house, and the place was quiet. Irma and Eddy were probably already in bed. Elisa, too, though she was probably glued to her laptop screen instead of sleeping. Dave was the one I wanted to talk to, and I found him just as he was coming out of the home gym.
“You’re hurt,” he said immediately.
“Barely scratched. You’re the one who’s going to be hurt if I find out you were pushing yourself too hard in there.”
“I just finished up with Elisa.”
“Oh. I suppose I can spare you, then.”
Originally, Dave had just been teaching Elisa how to control her super-strength, but at some point over the past month, that had changed to giving her advanced martial arts lessons. Father-daughter bonding time, plus it would help my baby girl protect herself, so I was 110% behind it.
“So how’d it go with the Prophet King?”
I sighed and gave him a play-by-play description. By the time I was finished, he was doing that thing where he held completely still because he was afraid he’d break something if he moved.
“I should have shot Sweet in the head when I had the chance,” he said in a low voice.
“No.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s better that you didn’t. I wouldn’t be able to interrogate him if he was dead.”
“You think Dr. Sweet is making psyc?”
Dave and I both turned at the sound of Elisa’s voice. She stood at the end of the hallway in sweatpants and a T-shirt, shuffling nervously. She was getting way too good at eavesdropping for my liking.
“No,” I said gently. “He’s in prison. He can’t make drugs, and he can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
“But you think he invented it?” she asked.
“I think it’s likely. And I’m hoping he’ll know who’s making it now.”
Elisa fiddled with a hole in the bottom of her T-shirt. (I made a mental note to tell Irma to throw it out next time she did laundry.) “You know, I could help.”
“With what?” Dave asked.
“The psyc thing. There’s this guy at school who sells it. He says you can cheat on tests with it—read other kids’ minds to get the answers and stuff, which is stupid because there’s nothing more distracting than having thirty voices in your head in the middle of an exam.” She rolled her eyes. “But I could pretend to be interested in buying and get you some evidence—”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“He’s not dangerous. He thinks he’s some big tough gangster, but he’s just a dumb dickwad. I could take him even without super-strength.”
“I said no.”
Dave joined in with a far less harsh voice. “I appreciate that you’re willing to do this, sweetheart, but your mom’s right. Even a dumb dickwad can be dangerous, and there’s no reason to risk yourself. We both need to let your mom handle it.”
Yes, that was good. I put my hand on the back of his chair to show my support.
“Fine.” Elisa directed the comment to the floor rather than our faces. Then she said a grumbling goodnight and went upstairs.
I was supposed to be making her feel better, not worse. She’d only managed to get through two classes at school again today, and her headache had been so bad, we’d had to cancel her appointment with her counselor. What I should be doing was distracting her with a debate of what ridiculously expensive sports car I was going to buy her for her sixteenth birthday, not how I was going to interrogate a mad scientist to keep her father out of prison. I wanted her to live a different life than I’d had, but while I could stop her from participating in this craziness, I couldn’t keep her from being affected by it. I was even worse at protecting her emotionally than I was physically.
Dave reached over his shoulder and put his hand on mine. I hadn’t realized until then how tightly I’d been gripping the back of his chair.
Chapter 5
The worst place in the world for a telepath was an emergency room. The thoughts of people fearing their loved ones wouldn’t make it and the agony of patients with broken limbs, ruptured organs, or worse: it all combined into a hurricane of overwhelming stimuli. Airports weren’t that bad, but they weren’t exactly a day at the spa, either. It was the myriad of little negative emotions piling up on one another. The aching back of someone who’d just spent four hours cooped up in coach, the frantic mother of three whose first flight had been delayed and was racing to catch her connection, the growing annoyance of every person stuck in a long, slow security line. I scanned the crowds of people lugging suitcases, searching for Agent Lagarde. The sooner she got here, the sooner we could get through security and I could get a Bloody Mary at one of the overpriced airport bars.
She walked through the sliding glass doors as if I’d summoned her, and she wasn’t alone. Freezefire—make that Julio Fuentes (I’d asked Dave his name last night) walked beside her, his costume traded for a dark blue suit and pale blue shirt, sans tie. He looked like any other young, traveling businessman, and a stewardess arriving for work gave him an appreciative look as she passed.
“Good morning,” I greeted. “Did you get anything out of our explosive friend during the night?”
Agent Lagarde’s constant frown got somehow frownier. “No.”
That one syllable had a lot of weight behind it. She wasn’t telling me something, and it wasn’t that the Combuster had squealed and they’d solved the case overnight.
“What happened?” I asked.
Before either of them could answer, an image of the Combuster dead in his cell flashed in Julio’s mind. Wonderful. Scratch that Bloody Mary; I was going to need something stronger.
“So our only lead is dead,” I said. “That’s great. How did it happen?”
Lagarde shot Julio a mild glare. He straightened up taller. His memory of the Combuster had been so vivid that I hadn’t needed to read his mind; he’d practically broadcasted it. Lagarde couldn’t keep me out of his thoughts if he carried on like that.
“We don’t know,” she said. “There was no obvious cause of death.”
I raised my estimation of the Combuster’s employer. He or she was ruthless enough to eliminate a potential nark and skilled enough to do it in a DSA holding cell without leaving any trace of the murder method. I respected that. It was bad news for me, though, since I was on the opposite side of the playing field.
“It also means it’s more important than ever that you get some kind of intel out of Dr. Sweet.” Agent Lagarde removed a needle from the inside of her suit jacket.
My heartbeat stuttered, but my voice was cool. “Isn’t it a little early for that?”
“The warden insisted. She wants you neutralized before you get anywhere near the prison grounds.”
And nobody disobeyed the warden.
“If you must.” I sighed dramatically and held out my arm.
Agent Lagarde injected me in my inner elbow. At le
ast she knew what she was doing. If there’s anything worse than getting pumped full of a telepathy-suppressing drug, it’s getting it done by an incompetent DSA agent who takes three tries to find your vein.
“It’s a twelve-hour dose,” she said. “If our trip takes longer, I have another.”
“Good. I was worried for a second.” I rubbed my arm. “A superhero and a psychic agent as escorts, plus a twelve-hour dose of exatrin. I suppose I should be flattered the DSA is so afraid of me. I’m on your side, you know. For now. Nominally.”
We walked to the end of the long security line and stopped.
“On second thought,” I said, “Are you sure this is enough of an escort? When I was arrested for Supersonic’s murder, the DSA sent six superheroes, five telepaths, and a SWAT team. I feel as if my threat-level has been downgraded.”
Agent Lagarde ignored me. Julio’s gaze flicked to my face to try and determine how serious I was.
“Are you planning on doing anything that would make us arrest you?” He kept his tone light, as though it wasn’t a serious question, but it was.
“Not at the moment, but it’s a long flight. I might get bored.”
He didn’t warn me against it, so he must have decided I was joking. He didn’t seem to find it funny, though. We stood in silence for a while, moving maybe three feet forward.
“Dave says hi, by the way.” I added.
The creases on Julio’s face smoothed, and his eyebrows relaxed. “Oh. Tell him I say hi back. Is he… How is he doing?”
“Still needs the wheelchair to get around, but he’s getting better every day.”
“That’s good. He…wasn’t looking too hot last time I saw him.”
“Wasn’t looking too hot? That wasn’t some kind of pun based on your powers, was it?”
“I’m allowed to use temperature-related words without them being puns,” he said through a clenched jaw. Beside him, Agent Lagarde didn’t exactly smile, but her frown softened. I’m guessing I wasn’t the first person to tease him about that.
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